


Knox Makes a Sandwich

by bIIVrdy, indigobunting6



Series: Knoxious and Nuwanda [1]
Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: (with the crusts), Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst?????, Charlie to the rescue, Chox, Comfort Food, DPS, Dead Poets Society - Freeform, Dead poets, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Support, Everyone Is Gay, Fix-It of Sorts, Food, Friends to Lovers, Honey Mustard - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Knarlie, Knox works at the Met., Lunch, M/M, NEW YORK NEW YORK BABEYY, NYC, New York City, Nostalgia, Post canon, Rekindled, Sandwich, So we meet again, Young MC references, anderperry, college graduates, costco? no, dare i say sams club????????????????????, except cameron, fortunately charlie works in a grocery store, golden age of hip hop, honey mustard???????, just makin a sandwich that's all, knox is hungry, kroger?, lacking ingredients, mentions of - Freeform, so we, starving knox, they havent spoken in two years.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:00:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28563957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bIIVrdy/pseuds/bIIVrdy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigobunting6/pseuds/indigobunting6
Summary: Knox Overstreet, a Columbia Graduate, wakes up in his NYC apartment, alone. He is hungry. When he discovers he has no ingredients to make his beloved favorite meal (honey mustard turkey sandwich with lettuce and cucumbers, lightly toasted (crusts on)), he goes to the grocery store, where he surprisingly finds himself rekindling something that once was.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Knox Overstreet, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Series: Knoxious and Nuwanda [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092842
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	Knox Makes a Sandwich

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy! May the new year bring you peace.

It was early afternoon, sunlight streaming through the window of the lonely (yet cozy) NYC apartment. Knox woke up in a haze, blinking cluelessly at the rays coming harshly from his windows. A loud grumble made him jump in place and he sat up in bed, frantically looking around for the source of the noise in sleepy confusion. That's when a familiar feeling washed over him and he furrowed his eyebrows in embarrassment (despite being very alone in his room). It was his stomach, he was hungry. He was REALLY hungry. So, deciding to fix this overarching issue, Knox stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen.  
His feet hit the cold tile of the kitchen floor and his legs were almost immediately met with warmth up against them. He smiled down at his cat, Constance, and crouched down to pet her head. She meowed out a greeting and he replied with a copy of her meow. The meowing also brought the presence of his one other cat to the room from the entrance to the living room area. Constance was a calico he brought home one night when he was still in college. She was a kitten when he got her and he had found her in an alleyway nearby the building he lived in at the time. His other cat that he’d only gotten about a year ago was a Maine Coon he got from a human society named Truman. They were now about the same age and were Knox's main source of company. He stood up after greeting Truman and set off on his journey.  
"Hmmm...What to eat, what to eat...??????" He mumbled aloud. He opened the refrigerator to see a half-full quart of milk (oat milk), a couple rice pudding cups, a shriveled turnip and a head of cauliflower. His eyes paused on an ancient leftover piece of carrot cake from a work event, still on the plate just as he had left it months ago. He was tempted by it, despite knowing it was old as shit and didn't even taste that good when he ate it in the first place. He gave the cake a shameful look and threw the fridge door closed dramatically. His stomach growled, louder this time. He sighed, defeated.  
"I want a goddamn sandwich!" He exclaimed, throwing his arms up in despair. And not just any sandwich, Knox needed a GOOD sandwich. He wanted wheat bread, but not that kind that's full of seeds and shit. He wanted crunchy lettuce and cucumbers, a nice slab of turkey, and some fucking honey mustard. His mouth salivated at the mere thought of the meal.  
As hungry as he was, he hated driving. But, the only grocery store in walking distance was an overpriced hipster market that only millennial men who wore berets and hated their fathers would go to. He grumbled in annoyance, but was ultimately too hungry to stay at home, eating old, crusty carrot cake. He grabbed his keys, wallet, grocery shopping tote and was out the door, still in his pajamas. Although, he did manage to put on an old Columbia sweatshirt since he realized it was quite crisp outside.  
Not even halfway through his walk, it dawned on him that it was definitely more than crisp outside as his pockets were buried in his sweatpants' pockets and he began to notice the fog that made its way from his mouth every time he exhaled. He had forgotten his phone at home though, so he couldn't actually check the temperature. His only solution was to walk at a quicker pace. A pace far too quick for a slightly disoriented, sleepy, hungry guy begrudgingly making his way to somewhere he didn't even really wanna be at.  
"Think of the honey mustard." He mumbled to himself. He glanced around to see if anyone was around to have heard him, thankfully there only being a few out of earshot. He shook his head at himself though, realizing even if someone was close enough to hear his longing for honey mustard, this was New York City and people hear a lot weirder things come from peoples mouths throughout the day. He finally reached out a hand to push open the door to the grocery and sighed in relief. He shook his hands in some attempt to warm them up as he brought them out of his pockets, then reached for a small handheld basket by the door. He made his way into the store, taking in his surroundings. It reminded him of a Trader Joe's but even more niche and just... bad. There was also a scarce amount of people in the building, most isles he went to having at most one person in them.  
As he made his way around the store, he smiled to himself realizing they had all the ingredients he had wanted. He finally made his way to get the last ingredient. The bread. It took him a second to find the bread section before he realized he remembered it being at the very front of the store, right across from the registers. He noticed there weren't any self-checkout machines and sighed shortly. He wasn't in any sort of interaction mood, even if it was just the bare minimum, he had been in no kind of human socialization mood for a while, actually. He'd lost consistent contact with almost all of his friends from high school. He'd kept up with them easily right until the end of college when they all realized they had to finally figure out what to do with their lives. At least, that's how Knox felt, he wasn't sure about most of his former poets. The last time he heard from Neil and Todd, the couple had visited Keating and his wife in Paris. Todd had become a writer of sorts (Knox only knew from Neil's text descriptions of what they did, and even those messages were becoming sparse these days.) and Neil, having at long last taken the reins of his own life, was an actor. Now, Knox was only aware of their successes on an impersonal level; the occasional poem of Todd’s appearing in the New Yorker or Neil’s Name in Playbill Magazine. Neither of them seemed to be too stressed about their futures, unlike him. Knox personally felt like he had been in some type of purgatorial state for the past two years. Even though the two lived somewhere in New York, they traveled a lot and were often busy with work. The last time he'd seen them was mid-May, when he went to an opening night for one of Neil's shows, accompanied by Todd. They got dinner afterward and it was lovely, but again, they were busy. Meeks was probably the busiest out of them all though, as he worked in the mechanical engineering field, or something like that. Knox honestly had no clue what he really did. Pitts would send him monthly "How are you?" texts and send him links to articles he thought he would enjoy, which always brought a smile to Knox's face and gave him a giddy feeling. Knox didn't know how Pitts was always so naturally nice and thinking of other people, it almost made Knox feel bad about himself. He on the contrary fell into an easy habit of never finding the energy to text any of his friends from the past. He'd very naturally lost connection with Cameron, and he especially didn't get the energy to change that. There was also Charlie.  
Charlie Dalton and Knox were the only two out of the group that went to the same college as the other, which Knox assumed had made him a bit closer to Charlie than he was with the other members, they were even roommates for a period of time. Despite all that, Knox hadn't spoken to or seen the guy for almost two years now, without counting about a year ago when he, Charlie, Neil, and Todd, went for dinner and drinks when they all were in town. Knox didn't remember much of the second half of the night, but he remembered it only being slightly awkward at the start. Other than that he recalled it being a great night, and he did miss it terribly. He wished he could put it all on Charlie and just say he hadn't texted him at all throughout the past years; that would be easy, but Knox wasn't any better than he was. He didn't know why he couldn't bring himself to communicate with Charlie anymore. Maybe it was because it'd been such a long time since they last talked, or maybe, Knox realized, it was because of his terrible lack of socialization skills. He wasn't always like this, he was pretty confident and sociable in college, as much as he needed to be, anyway. It was probably the isolation he'd accidentally, subconsciously immersed himself in. Despite being regularly exposed to social interaction at work, his friend count had majorly dropped off in the past two years, with little to no hope of growing back.  
He let out a loud yawn and was suddenly brought out of his thoughts by it, realizing he'd been standing in the bread section for way too long. And of course it had to be the section that was at the best viewing point to most everyone in and coming into the store. He felt his face go hot despite not knowing if anyone was even looking or noticed how long he'd been looking at bread. He grabbed a loaf of wheat bread quickly and started to walk over to the registers, not even noticing he got the kind with all the seeds and shit. He blindly stepped into one of the lines and tried to prepare himself with a few normal conversation starters, but his still very much half-asleep brain left him muddled and not able to focus. It always took him way too long to wake up, especially if he had no type of energy in his body, like today. He was surprised there was even a line since he remembered there being so few people there, it was probably low staffing. He watched the feet of the person ahead of him move to leave and he stepped forward, letting out another involuntary yawn while tossing his bread into his basket and placing it lazily on the counter next to the register.  
"What'd you just wake up or something?" He heard the person behind the counter say. As his eyes moved to said person from the basket they had been trained on, he began to respond, feeling confident finally despite freaking out a bit moments before about how to conversate with people.  
"Yeah, actually I-" Okay, so never mind about that aforementioned confidence. The mere idea of that drained completely out of his body when he realized Charlie fucking Dalton was standing on the other side of the register.  
What were the fucking odds of that? His mouth sealed shut instantly as he made unwilling eye contact with him, too frozen to look away. His throat ran dry and he remembered exactly why he hadn’t talked to Charlie in so long. He looked almost the same, only having a slightly different hairstyle and a few more arm tattoos. He looked good. He had that classic proud-looking smirk on his face; the quintessential charlie-dalton smirk that he wore so well. The only off thing about him was the short sleeve khaki colored button up he was wearing. Who the hell wears shirts like that? He assumed it was just the store's uniform, but Charlie looked like he was in a really lazy Indiana Jones costume. He watched in silence as Charlie scanned the honey mustard, not able to tell if he was doing it painfully slowly on purpose or not. He finally decided to process the fact that this was happening later and just turn off his brain and go full speed ahead. Just pretend like this is normal, I am unbothered.  
“Um, Hey.” Fantastic Intro, man. Charlie quietly chuckled as he reached for the package of turkey in the basket to scan.  
“Hi.” A short response in theory, but the way Charlie said it made it almost sound like a coy question. He drew out the “i” for way too long and slightly pitched his voice up at the end and it made Knox’s stomach turn in annoyance instead of hunger this time. Knox furrowed his eyebrows for a split second, in thought, but ultimately exhaled and kept the conversation going .  
“How have you been?” Good. Just keep it as a normal conversation. Just two old friends coincidentally checking in. He barely was buying anything anyway so this had to be over quick. Charlie laughed again, but it was more of a scoff this time. He paused his working and looked up at Knox, forcing them to make eye contact again.  
“I’ve been fine.” He shrugged and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. Knox knew Charlie hated small talk like this. He remembered this one day back in their roomie days when they were sitting on the couch talking about it.

“I swear to god Knoxious if you ever try to make small talk with me for any reason I’ll bite your head off.” Knox put his hands up in defense at Charlie’s sarcastic aggression.  
“Don't think I like it either! Sometimes it’s just necessary.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the couch, side-eying Charlie. The other boy leaned closer to him and pointed a finger right at his shoulder.  
“Not with me it is.”

Knox gave a glorified exhale and stuffed his hands in his pockets. How did he even get to this point anyway? He was trying to suppress the embarrassment and fight the hot, red feeling that flooded his face when he realized he was still making eye contact with Charlie. He averted his gaze to the activity behind him to see if there was a line or any customers he was holding up as if to create some sort of excuse to leave as quickly as possible, but there was no one in sight. He looked back at Charlie who was now going for the saran wrapped half ball of lettuce.  
“Why’re you working here?” He blurted out. Annoyed with himself, he clenched his fists in his pockets. Charlie paused and looked back up at him with an expression that was pointed, amused, and confused all in one.  
“The hell do you mean? Cause I like it...?” Knox pursed his lips and glanced around the store in exaggerated confusion. He looked back at Charlie, who had paused, still with the same expression on his face.  
“...Why?” Charlie scoffed and went to scan the lettuce.  
“You’re the one shopping here.”  
“It’s the only store within walking distance!” Charlie smiled and paused what he was doing again.  
“Right, course, your irrational fear of driving.”  
“It’s not a fear, asshole,” Knox said through a laugh. “It’s a dislike. I also woke up like 30 minutes ago, tops, so driving wasn’t an option.” Knox had a car in the garage of his apartment building, but only ever used it for work, and even then, half the time he opted for the metro. Charlie looked him up and down and Knox went a little red in the face.  
“Sure looks like it.” Knox furrowed his eyebrows and pulled his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms. Usually, he would respond with another quip but something dawned on him. They were… well they were acting like they hadn’t even stopped talking. It wasn’t something he expected at all, and it was a refreshing realization. Surprisingly enough, despite Knox's silence, Charlie continued the conversation, completely ignoring the groceries in front of him.  
“Where do you work then?” He challenged. Knox’s face grew even redder. He had an irrational fear Charlie would make fun of him if he told, but there was no escaping that now. He exhaled and quietly replied.  
“The Met.”  
Charlie’s jaw dropped and his hands fell palm first onto the platform in front of him harshly. He leaned forward, putting weight onto his arms and giving Knox an incredulous look, only making him blush more.  
“You work for the fucking Mets?!” Knox stood there red-faced in amazed silence for a moment, slouching his shoulders a bit in the process, before letting out a loud, genuine laugh. He quieted himself quickly and breathily responded to Charlie’s outcry.  
“No! The Metropolitan, dumbass. The Museum?” It was Charlie’s turn to go a bit red but his lips adorned a new sort of grin.  
“That… that makes a lot more sense.” Knox rolled his eyes with a smile and dropped both of his arms to his side. Thank god Knox was wearing the Columbia sweatshirt because the shirt under was one he “accidentally” stole from Charlie back when they lived together. The two of them became rather still and quiet after that, Knox just staring at Charlie, and Charlie, again, instead of doing his job, stared right back. So maybe two years did take a bit of a toll on their conversation ability, especially when in a situation as awkward as this one. When Knox came to the realization that the two of them were just smiling and staring at each other he didn't stop, but his face did get even redder. It seemed as if each of them had so many words to say to the other that it was almost visible; as if you could see the thoughts brewing through their eyes, which felt all too familiar to Knox. They had gone a long time refusing to communicate what they really wanted or thought, longer than the two years they hadn’t spoken. Too many times had they looked at each other just like this without speaking, letting the moment slip away from them all too easily.  
Right, back to when he remembered why he was finding it so difficult to talk to Charlie through the years might have been because of the slight crush he’d developed on his roommate during the last year or two of Colombia. But, I mean, who doesn’t secretly crush on their best friend during their waning college years, right? Knox had still dated Chris up until halfway through his freshman year at Colombia (when she’d dumped him right before their one year anniversary). She gave him a bunch of stereotypical breakup reasons; “I’m just not looking for long term right now.”, “I think we’d be better off as just friends.”, “It’s just not the same anymore.”, “I need freedom right now to figure out who I am.” All of them made sense, they always have, but they still hurt despite how cliche they were. Knox had always been a crier and he was pretty sure he skipped most of his classes that week, holed up in his room. This was before he moved out of the dorms and in with Charlie so he had to go outside or in his car if he wanted to actually cry about it. Maybe that’s why he hated cars so much.  
His feelings for Charlie sprouted in the spring of their Junior year, once they’d been living together in an apartment right off Columbia’s campus for around 6 months. At first, of course, total and complete denial clouded Knox’s brain. After that came the ruination of simple things, or rather the romanticization of them. Things like sitting together on the couch too close, looking Charlie in the eyes for too long, seeing him in any type of exposed get-up, etc. It got to an infuriating point where Knox could hardly function at the bare minimum in Charlie’s presence without getting flustered or having intrusive thoughts. Perks of falling for a naturally flirty best friend. Thankfully, at that point (the start of their senior year), Knox was able to preoccupy himself out of the free time he’d previously spent pining. He was just busy enough to try and get over his crush, or so he had hoped. Charlie, though, being ever so nosy, seemed to be intuitively aware of what he was doing and became even more clingy than usual. So in the end it was all just incredibly counterintuitive.  
Knox finally reached a breaking point after a surprisingly enlightening conversation with Todd over text (the guy could be very inspiring when he needed to be) and he vowed to tell Charlie how he felt. To call back to the mantra they lived by in their late high school years; Carpe Diem. He was a Senior at Colombia, he could do this. He was an adult, What's owning up to a crush to an adult anyway? He knew he had to be mature about it. Of course, all of his many hopelessly romantic confession scenarios were ruined when the two preemptively (and not at all romantically) made out, drunk, on a couch at a party one time. Usually, in the various teen romance media, Knox would shamelessly consume in his free time, one or both of them would forget the situation entirely, but as if God himself had it out for Knox, both unfortunately remembered (which, was astounding, in it of itself, given how drunk they both were). Of course, it was a hazy memory, but a real one nevertheless.  
Knox could also tell for a fact Charlie also remembered because when they saw each other in their shared kitchen the next morning, barely any words were spoken. Maybe that was normal for other friends experiencing mutual hangovers, but not for them. For them, this was a situation riddled with tension. After that, whenever the two were alone together, like watching a movie together in their apartment, it would always lead to something a little bit more. They never went too far and they also never really verbally addressed it. They went on normally, just as they had before, existing in a relationship shrouded in nuance and sexual tension. . After that came the awkward drift away and Knox had to force the idea upon himself that it was a friends with benefits situation. So, instead of ever actually dealing with his feelings for Charlie, he moved into an apartment alone, got another cat, and tried to focus on his job, accidentally kind of losing all his school friends in the process. As one does.  
But nowhere he was in an overpriced grocery store making prolonged eye contact with Charlie and giving him a dopey grin. What a reunion. Although, the hopeless romantic side of Knox that wrote love poems and read Jane Austen leapt up at this opportunity;  
It was obviously a sign! This is only something that happens to people in cheesy ass romance novels.  
Knox broke the eye contact, at last, he didn’t know how long that lasted or what the hell was going through Charlie’s mind. He looked back again to see if there was a line. Still none, but this time he was relieved at the fact. He observed Charlie scan the two cucumbers he grabbed, watching as he had to punch in a bit more information for these since the tags were a little different. He noticed then a specific new tattoo on the side of his wrist. It was a tiny saxophone with a vine wrapped around it. Knox decided to take the opportunity; reaching out to tap the small tattoo (twice) with his index finger before retracting his hand and stuffing it back in his pocket.  
“I like this one.” Charlie smiled as he bagged the cucumbers but came back with a response that seemed all too quick.  
“Of course you do, it’s the most shallow one.” Knox frowned in an immediate response but replaced it quickly with a fond smile, too scared that if he somehow messed up this interaction he’d go back to never wanting to talk to Charlie ever again, or at least that he’d go back to accepting it. Though, for Knox, that meant going a completely different direction and responding with something softer. That probably only set him in the same worrisome direction, Charlie was the furthest thing from a “softie”, and Knox assumed that he wasn’t too prepared for “softie Knox”, especially after two years.  
“Sonorous.” Knox was surprised at the way the tone of his voice dropped and fell out of his mouth like one of those helicopter leaves that twirled off maple trees. His tone definitely fit the word and its definition. Knox didn’t notice, but the word coming from his mouth left Charlie short of breath for a moment, only able to muster up a nonverbal sound of confirmation. He looked down to continue working as he felt a pink warmth rise up onto his face. He was pulled right from where he was in that moment and placed right back in their years at Welton Academy, back when they were just learning what it meant to live freely. Back when Charlie couldn’t get the word Sonorous out of his head and Knox couldn’t get Chris Noll out of his head. They were silent for a moment until Charlie grabbed the bread.  
“What’s this seedy shit Knoxious? You’ve changed a lot if you’re telling me you buy this type of bread now.” He said the last bit with a heavy tone of offense, but Knox’s stomach still got a second of butterflies whenever he heard the old nickname used again. It was gone quick and instead replaced with Knox’s matching disgust.  
“I grabbed that?” He sighed over exaggeratedly. “Christ, if I went home with that shit I would’ve thrown a fit. I’ll go get the other one.” He groans with a slight grin, glad that Charlie caught his mistake. But Charlie simply shook his head.  
“No, let me get it, you are the customer after all.” He gave a short and playful bow before prancing off with the horrible seedy bread. Knox let out a breath of contentment and looked down at his feet. He still could barely process what was going on. Instinctively, he leaned against the counter, his head in his hand. He was preoccupied, replaying their interaction in his head, when he felt someone flick the top of his head. He jumped a bit, standing up straight to see Charlie, who had returned, laughing, with a much more delicious looking loaf in hand.  
“You okay?” Knox felt slightly embarrassed but managed to respond with a sheepish smile, before saying “Just trying to process what’s going on, sorry” That was definitely the dumbest thing you could’ve said.  
Despite this, Charlie gave something that sounded like a giggle as he scanned the bread.  
“This loaf is one of my favorites; not wheat like the other one, but it’s this really good sourdough. One of my coworkers uses it for roast beef sandwiches - which I now force her to bring me for lunch.” Charlie said with a smile. Only now realizing that he’d been rambling, he went on; “Anyways, it's the BEST.”  
It was a little out of character but Knox supposed it was just part of having a customer service job. He smiled and nodded in response. The rest of the payment process went by, leaving them standing, looking at one another after a long ass checkout for only a few sandwich items. Items that were now tucked neatly into Knox’s tote bag. The two looked at each other awkwardly, neither wanting to cut the interaction short.  
“I got another cat.” Knox blurted out, causing Charlie to raise an eyebrow at him, another classic expression. When Knox first brought Constance back to the apartment as a kitten, Charlie had vehemently rejected the idea, but in true middle-age-dad fashion, as time went by, Charlie seemed to like her more than he liked Knox. Charlie liked to claim that he and the cat had connected minds and experienced the same conscious train of thought. Charlie gladly listened, which was yet another thing Knox loved about him. He didn’t seem like the kind but he was an incredibly patient listener. As was Constance. In Knox’s current apartment, he’d have very long conversations with the cat, who would sit patiently and even meow back a few times. She really was Charlie’s Kindred Spirit in a way.  
Knox gulped, “I know you like Connie so much so you know, if you ever wanna meet the new one or- and see Connie again, you should come over.” Truman on the other hand was more of a classic lazy male cat. His long grey fur and habitual aloofness reminded Knox of an old wizard that no one really trusted.  
“So you’re turning into a crazy cat lady and this is your cry for help?” Charlie said in a faux accusatory tone.  
Knox gave a soft laugh. “Yup. Pretty much spot on.” There was a pause between them, which caused worry to sprout in Knox’s chest. Why’d he even suggest that; there was probably a reason Charlie didn’t talk to him for so long, he’d probably hate to suddenly come over and...see the cats...of all things. Knox didn’t know why he’d optimistically suggested it in the first place.  
“Yeah, I’d love to,” Charlie spoke quietly and it took Knox aback, bringing a never-ending blush back to his cheeks. Nevertheless, he smiled back and tried not to overthink the situation.  
“Great! Great.” He responded eagerly. Charlie then pushed the tote closer to Knox, so he reached out and grabbed it. Their fingers brushed against each other briefly, but Knox paid no mind to it. If that had happened during the summer before senior year he would've given some long cliché internal monologue about how fire spread through his body at the touch. But now Knox only felt comfortable; it felt like he was returning to something he’d been missing, even though that conversation couldn't have been more awkward. It was definitely one of the worst conversations they'd had, but, even so, it went better than he’d anticipated. Knox had avoided contact with Charlie because of the awkwardness alone. Would it ruin each other's perspective on the relationship? Would it make Charlie think badly of him because their friendship had been reduced to meaningless small talk?  
That didn’t worry him right then. He had almost forgotten that feeling of contentment, the feeling of being genuinely excited for an upcoming interaction, but seeing Charlie gave him those sensations back again. He hoisted the bag on his shoulder. Charlie raised the hand with the little sax on his wrist to gesture at Knox.  
“Aren’t you gonna be cold? It’s like 40 out.” So that was the temperature. Better than he thought, actually.  
“Oh yeah, I’ll be alright. Maybe next time I’ll come in real clothes and wear a jacket.” Knox loved the phrase “next time”. It gave him endless opportunity and a steady sense of hope (unless used in a situation where he did not in fact actually want a next time, in which case it was just vague enough to leave the other party with that exact sense of hope), and the words brought a relaxed grin to his face. Charlie nodded in response and Knox turned to leave, smiling to himself. Just as he approached the double doors, Knox turned back to Charlie, who looked up. He brought his hand to his ear, sticking out his thumb and pinkie. “Call me sometime,” he said through a smile. Knox always seemed to gain confidence towards the end of the conversation, once he’d gotten over his own verbal clumsiness (for the most part). He shivered in the cold as he left, but he clung to this warm feeling the entire walk home. The nervous butterflies subsided into a full-blown pain of hunger in his stomach, and his focus returned to the task at hand; His Goddamn sandwich.

᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

There it was, placed delicately on one of his miscellaneous ceramic plates, all of which he’d purchased from various resale stores, and not a single one matched. This one was lined with red flowers and reminded him of something he’d find in the kitchen of his grandmother (on his mom’s side).  
The sandwich was perfectly placed in the center of the plate, cut diagonally down the middle so that it was in two triangular pieces. The song End of the Line by the Traveling Wilburys played quietly in the background from his speaker. The lettuce poked out a tiny bit on the sides and the bread was lightly toasted. He had slathered a hearty amount of honey mustard on the first piece of bread, put the turkey below that, then the lettuce, and the cucumbers at the bottom, sitting on the base piece of bread. Although he’d made the sandwich roughly 5 minutes ago, he’d spent the last 3 of those minutes taking pictures of his creation, while the other two were spent gloating to Connie and Truman. The two of them now sat patiently on the kitchen floor and observed as he stood gawking at the beautiful plate of food. The glory of this sandwich went far beyond its construction; which was worthy of note because Knox (who was naturally very clumsy) had managed to make it without dropping a single thing. No, the glory of this sandwich partly stemmed from the fact that he’d seen Charlie and it didn’t end in disaster. On the contrary, it ended with the hope that they’d be seeing each other very soon. There were so many things Knox wanted to ask him that he couldn’t have simply asked in the setting they’d just met in. Did he still play Soccer? Did he have any other job besides working at that place for whatever reason?  
The more he thought about it, it was a very Charlie thing to work at a store like that and enjoy it. It was just the right amount of rebellion against his filthy rich parents to work in a store with about 13 dollars per hour. He wondered if they’d get the chance to discuss all of Charlie’s new tattoos, all of which Knox seemed to find incredibly attractive. He assumed he probably got more than the few new ones he saw on his arms. The thought made him red in the face, as he quickly regressed into Junior-year-Colombia Knox in his own nervousness. He shook off the feeling and sighed. Just shut your brain off and eat your sandwich, Knox. He glanced at Constance with a smile, not being able to shake off the thought of Charlie. He looked back at the sandwich. He couldn't believe that it'd taken him that long to see Charlie again. He felt guilty about this, for his loss of contact with all the other Dead Poets, really (if he could still call them that). He didn't think mechanical engineering had anything to do with poetry, but while he floated in his own nostalgia, a phrase of his old English teacher resurfaced. “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.” He smiled contentedly to himself. They were all still Poets, and all were still connected simply because of that fact. Knox knew he needed to initiate more contact between them; he reminded himself of that constantly, but he found himself lost in the business of maintaining his own life, a byproduct of which was loneliness. But maybe that could change now. Thank God for coincidences. He reached down and picked up a sandwich half, bringing it to his lips and taking a large bite from one of the side corners.  
He melted at the taste and closed his eyes. It was a really good fucking sandwich.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this in one night and its the most focused I've been on anything in a while.  
> Also a big thanks to @indigobunting6, they helped me a lot with the editing!!!!!! Check out their anderperry fic!!!


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